of the apartments now collecting free-market rents. About 40% of
the units are occupied by Section 8 tenants, but those are said to
bring in nearly market-rate rents.

Ross Moskowitz and John Egnatios-Beene led the Stroock &
Stroock & Lavan team that advised Blackstone, handling land use
and government relations for the purchase. The complex was marketed by a CBRE team led by Darcy Stacom.

Blackstone already was in the record books for having made the
city’s two largest multifamily purchases of 2015: Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, with Ivanhoe Cambridge, for $5.3 billion and
the Caiola portfolio with Fairstead Capital for $690 million.

BROKERS’ HAIL-MARY KEEPS UNILEVER IN ITS HOME

Unilever and its predecessor firms have occupied two adjacent
corporate campuses at 700 and 800 Sylvan Ave. in Englewood
Cliffs, NJ for decades. But changing space needs, a desire to win the
war for talent and an evolving sustainability mandate threatened to
result in Unilever’s exit, and the potential return of 665,000 sf of
office and laboratory space to the North Jersey market.

Instead, a series of four transaction led by Cushman & Wakefield
resulted in Unilever staying put through at least 2034, two large-scale
redevelopment projects with an emphasis on energy efficiency by a
partnership of Netherlands-based OVG and US-based Normandy
Real Estate Partners and, at year’s end, the headquarters at 700
Sylvan trading to Mesirow Financial in a sale-leaseback. The recommitment incorporated several Cushman & Wakefield-negotiated
state incentives and an expansion from 300,000 to 321,000 sf will
accommodate the consolidation of several local Unilever operations.

Since this was OVG’s first North American deal, C&W’s David
Bernhaut introduced the company to Morristown, NJ-based
OVG/Normandy purchase agreement under Unilever’s newly
restructured, 18-year lease. This would allow the JV partners to
recoup the cost of redeveloping the campus, including $100 million-plus of sustainability and smart technology renovations at 700 Sylvan.

Enter Chicago-based Mesirow, which simultaneously took assignment of the OVG/Normandy purchase contract, and executed the
acquisition on Dec. 20. Mesirow paid $102.6 million, or $264 per sf
of office space for the property, according to Real Capital Analytics.

As part of bringing the deal to fruition, Bernhaut led a huge
C&W team that included Frank Ditomasso, Katie Grishman, Louis
Wolfowitz, Robert Elms, Mark Todrys, Colin Blair, Jay Hruska,
John Alascio and Sridhar Vankayala. Unilever was represented in
house by David Schwartz, Nathaniel Barney, Ming-lee Chua and
Colin Blair. Giorgios Vlamis, Eric Rubin and Paul Teti were the in-house reps for Normandy, while Jan-Hein Lakeman and Coen Van
Oostrom acted for OVG and Garry Cohen, Douglas Barker,
Stephen Jacobson and Nathanial Sager spoke for Mesirow.

A GLOBAL PHARMA GIANT’S US HQ RELOCATION

In one of the largest leases in New Jersey last year, global pharmaceutical giant Allergan signed on to relocate its US headquarters to
5 Giralda Farms in Madison, NJ. Allergan leased the entire

431,495-sf property for a 13-year term.

The move to 5 Giralda Farms will consolidate three of Allergan’s
existing New Jersey office facilities in Parsippany, Bridgewater and
Jersey City, bringing 1,800 employees together in one state-of-the-art headquarters. According to reports, the NJ Economic
Development Authority estimates that Allergan’s staying put will
yield a net benefit to the state of $385.1 million over 20 years.

Allergan, the company behind Botox, Juvéderm, Restasis and
other leading pharmaceutical products, received more than $58
million in state incentives as part of the Grow New Jersey program,
and worked closely with the mayor of Madison, Robert Conley, and
Ray Codey, borough administrator, to allow for an above-grade
parking garage for the facility.

Owned by a Lincoln Equites partnership, 5 Giralda Farms is
comprised of a modern corporate headquarters facility located on
50 acres at the Giralda Farms office campus in Madison, NJ. JLL’s
Daniel J. Loughlin and Jodie E. Mathews represented Allergan in
the transaction.

CASINO BY THE SEA

Add the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa to the mix of Atlantic City
resorts changing hands. This past August, MGM Resorts
International and MGM Growth Properties paid $900 million to
acquire Boyd Gaming Corp.’s 50% interest in the Borgata. The
deal entails MGM Growth Properties acquiring the casino hotel’s
real property from MGM Resorts and leasing it back to an MGM
Resorts subsidiary that will operate the asset.

Cash proceeds paid to Boyd Gaming for its interest were $589
million, after customary working capital adjustments and consideration of Borgata’s outstanding debt of $575 million. A portion of
this debt was refinanced and then assumed by MGM Growth
Properties in connection with its acquisition of the real property
associated with Borgata from MGM Resorts.

ALL THE PRESIDENT’S TOWERS

A $183-million loan from Starwood Capital Group, arranged by
Shawn Rosenthal of CBRE Capital Markets’ debt & structured
finance team, has enabled Post Brothers Apartments to fully
realize its vision for the large-scale renovation of one of
Philadelphia’s best-known residential communities, Presidential
City. Specifically, the loan proceeds are being used to complete